Parental favoritism and love are not the same thing. Your child feeling secure and safe enough to express a preference is most likely a reflection of good parenting, not the opposite.

COVID-19 is still out there. Your choice of activity depends on several factors: your family’s risk, your community prevalence of COVID-19, and how adherent your children will be to the guidelines.

Life is a long game, and this is a weird and challenging time. But our children are more resilient than we think. They will be learning more than just schoolwork from us and their teachers this year: they’ll be learning some resilience, some flexibility, and that they are stronger than they believe. And we want them to learn to give themselves grace. So let’s begin to model that ourselves.